First Love, Last Innocence
by Me Or The Wallpaper
Summary: When he was little, he was in love with Tomoyo. TomoKuro KuroTomo, for those who don't know how that relationship would work ;-D Written for the "TomoKuro and KuroFai Challenge!" rated T because I don't like K.


Disclaimer: eh… not mine. *tries to steal… and fails… * nope. Still not mine.

Warnings: oddly enough for me, this contains HETEROSEXUALITY with Kurogane. Honestly people, heterosexuality. As in, Kurogane, crushing on a girl. It's TomoKuro. KuroTomo, whatever you want to call it. Stop not believing me, I'm being serious… -_-'

Written for the TomoKuro and KuroFai challenge, the details of which can be found on the forum "Everything Tsubasa" in the thread "TomoKuro and KuroFai Challenge!!" on this website.

When he was little, he had been in love with her.

Not _thought_ he was in love with her, not childishly crushed on her. No matter how much he knew many people would have teased them had they known, Kurogane knew that his first true and real love had been Tomoyo. It had not been because she was beautiful, which she was. It had not been because was his princess.

It was not even because she had been the one to save him, really.

He hadn't understood it at the time. At the time he had known it was there, had known what the ache in his heart meant when she was near him, and had known how to express it all. So he had, one day when she had gone to lie outside in the grass, so much dark hair falling around her head- too wide, too encompassing to be a halo, but angelic all the same. Her eyes had reflected the sky, and glittered though clouds blanketed the sun and the leaves of the trees blocked most of the remaining light, the deep purple of them seemed to glint and glitter with the distant reflection of something bright.

Kurogane, already her sworn protector and still so young, sat against the tree she lay under, clutching his sword in one calloused pad of a hand.

"I'm in love with you, you know." He had said. It had been an incredibly simple confession, he hadn't reached to touch the side of her pale cheek, and he had not brushed hair from the forehead. He had not even met her eyes, though to be honest he was perfectly unafraid to.

It was now, though, that she looked back. She did not lift herself from the ground, did not even roll over so that she could rest her chin on her hand and look at him. She simply tilted backwards so that the nose eventually pointed directly into the air, and she was looking at his face upside-down. Now, he met her eyes. They were smiling, though her tiny mouth had not yet turned upwards.

"Why?" She asked, not unsure or emotional, not insulted, simply curious.

Kurogane frowned. Why, indeed?

He remembered when he had first saw Tomoyo.

The limp body had been clutched in his arms and Her eyes had been open, vacant and witnessing Her son's destruction, both what he wrought and the destruction of himself. The blood on his hands and dripped down onto her, the blood of so many faceless monsters and those who had tried to stop him mingled with her own blood, which was held like the crushed innards of a red fruit inside her pale skin, wrapped in cloth…

So horrific it dimmed the world forever.

And then Tomoyo had been there, and he remembered lifting that sword at her, the one and only time his weapon had and ever would point towards Tomoyo, but a lift of that tiny, chubby child's hand had sent him backwards. The killing and slaughter had stopped, and his mother stared blankly up at him. Her mouth had been half open, and her body had been limp and almost deflated, as though what she _was_ had been regurgitated. Those eyes were so empty, empty, empty…

And Tomoyo's tiny hands had closed them, letting her rest, finally, and Kurogane had felt something inside him break almost grateful in it's shattering. The last tears he had ever shed had poured down his cheeks, washing the streaks of dirt and blood away with pure salt, as though his own eyes were trying to purify themselves again after witnessing so much, after loosing any innocence the gaze they held had yet retained.

But that wasn't why, no. He did not love Tomoyo because she had saved him. Or maybe he did, but simply that could not explain it.

Perhaps it was because after the tears had been shed he had woken up and really, in away he had simply begun again to walk around the world with his eyes wide and his mother's body clutched in his hand, his sword slashing again and again without him even seeing, really. Stronger and stronger, and the bodies piled up, and really in her grave his mothers eyes must open again and again and blood would-

He couldn't finish that thought.

But in times like these, he was not broken. Not broken like that creature that walked the battlefields, now more and more often with a disgusting and yet such a sweetly, sickly glorious grin finding it's way onto his face without him realizing.

He was not broken as his sword lay sheathed, and the sun broke through the clouds and filtered through the leaves to Tomoyo's half smiling face.

He may be eternally broken, eternally walking those battlefields, but there were reprieves, and all came with Tomoyo.

"You make… I mean… well, things, uh, make sense around you." He said after a moment, considering, not awkward, simply unsure of how to tell the truth, what words to use.

She smiled back at him, fully now. "I love you, too." She said simply, and with a tiny hum she tilted her chin forwards and shut her eyes again, a small smile now across her lips.

Kurogane did not quite know what to do, now. Should he kiss her? Not that he didn't want to, but the fact that he didn't particularly need to at all halted him. He realized with a slight confusion that he was perfectly happy to just sit here, leaning against the tree. So he did not get up, and he was silent.

Slowly the sky darkened, and Souma came to the door and called out to them that it would not be long now before they had to come indoors. Tomoyo was fingering a fine blade of grass, and she lifted the hand that held it in acknowledgment.

"I think it will be different, though." She said finally, and Kurogane raised his eyebrows.

"Huh?" He asked. It had been hours since they had last spoken.

"When we're older," she said simply, still staring at the grass as though memorizing each small vein and crevice of it, to pick it out from millions later. "I don't doubt that I love you. I don't doubt that you love me. I just think it will be different, somehow. Over time."

Kurogane shrugged. "Well, yeah. I'll still love you, though. You should know." He said conversationally. By tone alone they could have been discussing the coming weather.

Tomoyo laughed, and said nothing, though even when her mouth closed her eyes still chuckled joyously. "Come on," she said, and she reached a small hand out to him. He took it, and he did not let go of the tiny fingers.

Fireflies had begun to glint in the dusk, their tiny lights blinking in and out of existence, moving through the shadows unnoticed for the tiny reprieves between. Tomoyo did not go to try to catch one tonight, she instead walked hand in hand with Kurogane, who kept one hand still balanced on his sword.

He looked at her, long dark hair falling over tiny shoulders shrouded in colored silk, purple eyes seeming to drink in the world like honey, and he wondered vaguely how it would change. He did not doubt though, that it would.

At this time though, he leaned over and he kissed her, not quite gentle but gentle for him, on her cheek and close to her lips. Tomoyo smiled back and him and turned her head, so that for a brief moment their lips did meet. It did not last more then a second, and she smiled briefly at him before letting her fingers slide from his and dashing quickly through the grass, up to where the castle jutted out of it. She had not worn shoes, so she did not stop to remove them. She did not spare him a backward glance as she pulled the door open and joined the yellow lighted inside of the room Souma waited for her in.

Kurogane watched the shadow of Souma greet the princess, watched the taller girl leading the child away, towards her room.

Then he turned and walked back, around the castle and trudged slowly through the grass, not particularly excited or relieved but generally happy, happy in a true an encompassing way that was so very comforting in it's distant familiarity.

They did not kiss again. Kurogane can not even remember at this time if they held hands again, though he remembers a few times when he was growing larger and stronger and she remained tiny and frail carrying her from room to room when she was sick or tired or simply wanted to be carried.

He would carry her on his back, and she would wind her tiny arms wrapped in so much stiff fabric around his neck, and her tiny head would rest against his back and he loved her still.

She had been right, though. It had changed. He had not stopped loving her. If anything he grew to love her more, over the years. But it was not the same as what they had when they were children, that single day; single confession and single kiss that all together felt like the last exhale of innocence in his life.

She was still Tomoyo, more unchanged then he was, even. That was saying something, too, because he was still Kurogane. He was still broken, still slaying the world around him in desperation, trying so hard to…. To what?

She was still Tomoyo, his brief moments of not being broken. Though admittedly, it grew to be that Tomoyo more made him forget that he was broken then was able to hold him together for those short periods of time.

But it changed, and they did not speak of it, did not really and truly acknowledge it because to be fair, they had not really and truly acknowledged all that their first love in each other had truly meant.

It had certainly changed. They would not kiss now, or really ever again, and he found he liked it better that way, if only because he was perfectly happy with the passage of time. As happy as he could be.

But, as promised, he still loved her.

A/N: Well. I kind of cheated, didn't I? This was for the TomoKuro and KuroFai challenge. My own challenge, actually. I figured it was only fair that I participate in it.

So. I followed my own rules _exactly_, but there was still that ending bit. It wasn't about them breaking up, because technically they were never together and technically they never even said they didn't romantically love each other anymore. There was even a lip kiss. Yet still, I feel like I've cheated. ^_^'

Oh, and TomoKuro people: please participate in the TomoKuro and KuroFai challenge! You can read about it in the forum Everything Tsubasa, it has it's own thread in there. There are about three (counting me) that are participating in it that are writing TomoKuro fics because we support KuroFai, and there is one (count em, one) TomoKuro supporter writing a KuroFai fic. So yeah, we need more for the other side.

One last thing: I know there are mistakes, I didn't use a beta, but I'd… um, appreciate hearing about them anyway? o_O

Thanks! Please review!


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